The Heavy Jets – Common Mantra review

I suppose saying you’re influenced by classic rock in 2015 isn’t exciting for a lot of people, the genre can’t do much new at this point, everything tends to sound influenced by everything in the past in an obvious way. There’s still a massive audience for it though; I know your uncle spins all the AC/DC records all the time, although it could be the same one over and over again because that’s all their albums anyway but you would never know the difference, but I digress – rock music today is struggling to show new ideas.

That’s not to say rock is dead though, and not even in the mainstream either, the success of Royal Blood prove that (and they show their influences quite obviously), but the huge audience really doesn’t mean there’s originality there, instead it probably just means Radio 1 like playing it. With rock music though, smaller audiences certainly doesn’t mean the band is as innovating as the fans want to think they are. This brings us to The Heavy Jets, and as you can guess they’re not very original either – is that a bad thing? No, they make pretty great rock songs without it feeling like a complete rock throwback either.

Well recorded, fast rock songs with an emphasis on big choruses is what you’re getting here on this four track EP. Drop being the best example of this, easily the catchiest hook on the EP. The second track being a bit more of a harder hitting track, and it has to be mentioned that when this vocalist uses more gruff vocals, he sounds quite fantastic, also reminding me a bit of Dope Body. The third track goes for a melodic guitar lead, which works well since the two tracks before aren’t quite as melodically driven, the bass is slightly more prominent in those songs which does make them more exciting and a little throttling, sort of like Thee Oh Sees or Band Of Skulls, especially the first track for the latter band mentioned.

The Heavy Jets do manage to show a little bit of variety on Common Mantra but also keeping a familiar sound throughout, and luckily this isn’t your average run of the mill rock record that seem to have existed since the dawn of time. So take your uncle down to see these guys at a gig, they’re not Thin Lizzy, but he’ll love them.